The Parable Of Two Trotro Mates

 

Where I come from, our elders say no matter how much you dislike the pig, you must give it credit for its prowess in love-making.  Mr. Dramani Mahama has made certain statements which in the beginning, some of us thought he went overboard. However, as time went on, we realised that what he said was nothing but the truth.

At a meeting with supporters of the NDC at Kumasi in the run-up to the 2012 General Election, he said irrespective of whatever good things the NDC does for the people of the Ashanti Region, they will never be grateful.  He said if even you tar the streets of Kumasi with gold, they will still vote against the NDC.

Unfortunately, when he went to the Volta Region to campaign, he did not tell the people there that no matter what the NPP does for them, they will never vote for the party.  Even though the late President Rawlings was an indigene of the Volta Region, he neglected the region as far as development was concerned. He later honestly apologised to the people of the Volta Region for neglecting them when he was in power.

It was former President Kufuor who really brought development to the area.  President Akufo-Addo continues to follow the path of ex-President Kufuor. Go to Ho and other towns in the Volta Region and see their roads. In fact, like any other Ghanaian, children of the Volta Region also enjoy Free SHS, Free School Feeding among other goodies.  What did Mahama and the NDC do for the people of the Volta Region? And yet they do not hesitate to refer to the area as their ‘World Bank’.

Then as things started going bad for the economy when Mahama was the president, he said the government has eaten all the meat, leaving only bones.  That too was true but Ghanaians did not understand him.  It was admission that the country was broke under his stewardship. The man speaks in parables so it will have to take wise men to understand him.

He knew he could not point to a single poverty alleviation programme that his government introduced to mitigate the suffering of Ghanaians, hence his admission that all the meat has been eaten, leaving only bones. That is why he said recently that when he comes back to power, he will distribute piglets and day-old chicks for people to rare, so that poverty could be alleviated.  As for the piglets, Muslims should not count themselves among the beneficiaries if Mr. Mahama starts to distribute them because Islam considers that as a taboo.

The man was the vice president to the late Prof. Mills, and when Mills died mysteriously, he became the president.  At a presidential debate organised by the IEA in the run-up of the 2012 General Election, Mr. Mahama told Ghanaians that he was just a spare driver when Mills was in power so when given the nod, he will bring new things on board.  Listen to the ugly noises he continues to make when Dr. Bawumia too said he was a mate to Mr. Akufo-Addo.

It was Mr. Mahama who told us that Ghanaians are short-sighted and forgetful, and we did not agree with him. He has been proven right because when he said he was a mate when Mills was in power, Ghanaians seem to forget what he said and some people are making ugly noises when Dr. Bawumia made similar statement.

Are we not forgetful as Mr. Mahama said?  Yes, we are, else we would have taken on Mr. Mahama for his comments when he was elected as the flagbearer of the NDC in the 2024 General Election.  He told NDC supporters that they should mark it on the wall because unlike the NDC, which does not discriminate, the NPP discriminates.  He said when the time came for the NPP to elect a flagbearer, they would not choose Dr. Bawumia because he is a Northener.

At the end of the day, when the NPP Delegates went to the polls, fourteen out of the sixteen regions in Ghana voted for Dr. Bawumia.  Of all the Akan regions, Dr. Bawumia lost only the Central Region, the home base of maverick Kennedy Agyapong. Even there, Dr. Bawumia was able to garner more than ten thousand votes. Has Mr. Mahama got any shame? He should come for my Webster’s Dictionary of Contemporary English and check the meaning of SHAME. Maybe he still believes Ghanaians are forgetful.

There was this trotro mate whose driver died while heading towards their destination. An unprepared and inexperienced mate took over the steering wheel and drove the car into the ditch. He pleaded to the passengers that he was just the mate and so he was not competent enough to drive the car, and now that the driver is dead, he will work hard to get experience to drive the car.

The passengers agreed and gave him the opportunity.  It was the biggest mistake the passengers ever did. The passengers should have known that as a spare driver, he brought nothing to help the main driver. He turned out to be the worse driver because he did not learn the trade well.  As a result, he crushed the vehicle into a ditch one more time.  Unfortunately for the mate turn driver banza, the only living former driver of the same car, a white man, a quartecast called Rawlings, was at loggerheads with him so he had no one to advise him.  He ended up a failure.  He left behind a rickety vehicle which needed to be repaired before it was put back on the road.

When the vehicle was handed over to a new driver, the new driver chose an experienced mate who worked with him to sav-e passengers.  Things went on well until the vehicle reached a bumpy road, full of potholes.  Just when the vehicle was about to leave the bumpy road the driver retired and handed over to his experience mate who had learnt his lessons well.

Before the driver retired, the new mate had learnt all the nitty-gritty of driving, and he had also learnt how to repair the car anytime there was any fault.  Riddle, riddle! Who is the new experienced mate?

 

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